Ezekiel 17:22–24
2 Corinthians 5:6–10
Mark 4:26–34
Today we slip back into Ordinary Sundays as we call them. Along with this, we return to our Sunday reading of the Gospel of Mark. Today we find ourselves at the very end of Chapter 4. This chapter is a collection of various parables. We hear Jesus coming to the conclusion of his speaking to the crowds and the disciples in this manner. All of the parables in the chapter come from the farming and agricultural world. Jesus recalls the sower, the seed and the soil and the growth process in their interaction. Each time he focuses on some aspect of the process.
We need to recall the last lines of Jesus today. He chose to speak to the people in parables. But with his own circle of disciples he took time to open them further. The parables look like they are pointers on how to plant and what to expect. But we realize that they are really about the Kingdom of God. Jesus and his audience were familiar with planting from the seed dropped into the soil to the harvest. What was new was Jesus proclamation of the Kingdom of God. That is more elusive that planting a seed, but it is just as real. Jesus choses the familiar world of planting to introduce an unfamiliar world of the Kingdom.
We, too, need to know something about the world of a parable. At first glance, it may look like a little story about some human experience. And it is; but inside it is really pulling us into a different world that Jesus calls the Kingdom of God. A parable is not just some neat story. It is meant to bring together the familiar and the unfamiliar. But the unfamiliar is in reality bigger than the stuff in the little story. What the story describes is “like” the Kingdom of God. The parable is not always clear at first sight and it is not meant to be. The Kingdom of God cannot be contained in the mustard seed and it cannot be contained in the natural growth process but the Kingdom is “like” both…Parables depend on our imagination. They tease us and call us to see more than what is there. A parable does not really explain anything; that would be rational. Rather it opens up possibilities and invites us into them. It is always best not to make different elements in the parable mean only one simple thing. It can mean many things. And the meaning will grow as we grow in in our human experiences.
In both parables today there is a definite growth process. And in both parables there is a sense of mystery as to how this happens. If a farmer or a gardener were to plant a seed and then go each day and uncover the soil to see what happening down there, the seed would not germinate. But if the gardener lets the seed and soil and water work while the gardener is carrying on with life, the process takes place. We might be trying to watch or control our own growth process—analyze it, dissect it and in general be in charge over it. Nothing much will happen. The parable says that the gardener does what he or she can but then lets the seed go to work. And Jesus says, “he does not know how.” Perhaps that is the catch. There is a mystery in how God works with us human beings. Once the seed of the Word is planted in our hearts something will happen; Jesus assures us of that. The seed of the Word might look like we do all the work with it, but in the Kingdom, God is part of that process of growth. We have to allow God to work the mystery of his life within us.
Life in the Spirit does not always go on or work out on our time framework. Or the results may not look like what we expect. If we are standing in the Kingdom world then we ought to let mystery into our lives so that the growth we desperately want will actually occur. If we are not living from the Kingdom perspective then we might judge others when we see growth in the Spirit not going fast enough. Or even we might dare to judge it is not growth because we are applying our categories of growth to that person or to ourselves. The parable reminds us that spiritual growth is a process and that God and the Spirit are part of that growth. And the parable asks us if we can admit that there are some elements of our own lives as well as those of others that “we do not know how.” There is mystery in our lives. Parables affirm what we might know, but they also challenge us to the mystery that lies in the Kingdom.
One aspect of the Kingdom’s mystery is really rather old when we listen to God’s story of interaction with his people. We like things big. This is the Kingdom of God, so it must be big, grand and popular, right from the start. But our God does not work that way. He is not about planting fully-grown trees. No, he starts with what is small. Ezekiel sees God replanting his people symbolized in the tree. But he doesn’t start with the mighty cedar, he starts with a twig. This, in time and with care, will grow. Jesus says that the Kingdom, which implies in human terms something rich, famous, grand and visible, this Kingdom really starts with the smallest of all seeds. Then from the smallest, shall we say in terms of people, the weakest, the marginal, the impossible, comes what God wants, arises God’s Kingdom, his way of life.
And what does God want? Well, at least we can use our imagination and see that in the mustard seed become the largest of plants; we can find birds of the sky making a home within it. Does this mean that the Kingdom is a community, a flourishing plant or tree, that stretches out branches to hold and shelter all kinds of people? What can this image say to us of the kind of Church, the Body of Christ, that the Father is cultivating? Is it perhaps a community that is open to holding the rich variety of human beings that inhabit our home, the earth? If this is so, then the harvest will be great indeed for the variety and diversity of the members of humanity is really beyond our comprehension. It is hard to imagine such a Church. But yet, hidden in the mustard seed and seen as our God sees it, it is possible and Jesus assures us it will happen. Why? Because it is about the mystery of the Kingdom, a mystery that leads us into what at first we do not see or even imagine.
Paul says today we walk by faith. Jesus comes and speaks in parables. These tease our faith. What is familiar but seems insignificant, weak or even ignored becomes, when seen in the Kingdom, a new and marvelous world. We can enter into the Kingdom world and follow its vision only if we walk by faith.
Our gardener God is always sowing seed where he wills. The Spirit blows and we do not know where it comes from or where it is going. But what we can do is enter into the mystery of the growth process of a little seed and the gentle breath of the Spirit. Jesus says over and over again, if you have ears, listen to the Word. The mystery begins its work when we listen to the parable.
~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB